He watched his daughter go up to the bar and offer up his coffee mug for a refill. Leaning against the bar, back arched in a confident, almost defiant pose, she looked over at him and gave a little shrug and toss of her head, as if to say, Sorry, Dad, it's just tough love. When the bartender, Herbie, had poured a fresh cup of coffee, Grace touched his hand and mouthed a thank-you. Everything about the gesture-the look in her eyes, the way she stood, the small, knowing, confident smile-gave off the aura of a grown woman, not a child.
TJ lost his place in the song and faked it, repeating an earlier verse.
Nobody seemed to notice. Or maybe it's just that nobody cares. He didn't like to think that, but Grace's callous pragmatism had rubbed off on him.
As she came back to him with the coffee, he watched her poise and gait.
Who the hell are you?
The thought startled and saddened him, haunting him for the rest of the set. It felt to him as if, when he wasn't looking, some grown-up girl had replaced his baby. It happened to every father. He'd known the day would come but had never suspected it would be so soon, and now he was blindsided.
His little girl was gone.
Doug Manning stood near the foot of his bed, trying to pull on a blue cotton hooded sweater while conducting a phone conversation.
"Yeah, I'm watching NECN right now," he said quietly, switching the cell from one ear to the other as he dragged the sweater over his head. "They just did the weather. Looks like it's gonna hit us on Wednesday, twenty inches or more. Slow-moving. It's a monster."
A chill went through him that he knew a lot of people in Coventry would share. Watching the computer model of the storm churning in from the west, all he could think about was blinding snow, a city buried in paralyzing drifts of white, and the frostbitten cheeks of his wife when they'd finally found her and brought him in to identify her corpse.
This storm would be different, though. Instead of destroying his life it would help him build a new one.
"Looks like this is it," Franco said on the other end of the line.
"Looks like," Doug replied.
"Are you up to it? Second thoughts? You lose your nerve in the middle of this thing and me and Baxter maybe end up in jail. I can't take the risk."
Doug tamped down the anger rising in him. "You kick a dog enough and he can't help biting you, man. I've been kicked enough over the years. I'm ready to start biting, and I'm gonna sink my teeth in deep."
"What the hell you talkin' about, man?"
"I'm ready, that's all. I'm not going to screw this up. If the plan goes south it's going to be one of you guys who blew it."
Franco grunted. "Better not let Baxter hear you talking like that. You'll get him paranoid about working with you."
"Fuck Baxter. It's happening this week, during this storm. I have one chance at really turning things around and I'll do it alone if it comes to that. I ain't doing this for fun and I sure as hell ain't doing it for you and Baxter."
Franco went quiet. A few seconds of silence passed between them while the sports guy reported on the Celtics' latest winning streak.
"I don't think of you as a friend," Franco said at last.
"Feeling's mutual."
"No, listen up. I think of you as a tool-"
"Franco-"
"A tool is useful as long as it works," Franco went on. "You don't want to see your place in this, I can't be responsible for what happens."
Doug laughed softly, but loud enough for Franco to hear him over the phone.
"I'm no master criminal, that's true," he said, with a glance at the bedroom door to make sure that Angela hadn't come back upstairs. "But this is my plan. My goddamned idea. Never mind that I'm the one who got us the house keys; I'm the one whose ass is on the line. Somehow I managed to give you the impression that I'm some kind of pussy, maybe because I haven't been ripping people off since my cradle days the way you and Baxter have. But this is my gig, man. The keys are mine. The life I've been living since I lost my wife … if I'm gambling my life and my house and my freedom, that doesn't feel like a lot of risk to me. So we're either in this together, all of us, or I try to pull it off myself. You want to trade bullets over it, let's go and do it. Otherwise, stop pushing me. You want me to bare my throat to you like we're some dog pack, but it's not gonna happen, Franco."
Again, Franco hesitated. The anger churning inside Doug started to cool and harden into grim confidence when he heard that silence on the line. He felt good, really good, for the first time in so long. While Angela had gone downstairs to make them some lunch, he'd taken a shower and shaved and pulled on clean clothes. Watching the weather forecast had filled him with a peculiar excitement, a dreadful anticipation.
"You going to say all this to Baxter when we meet tomorrow?" Franco asked.
"I am."
"All right, Dougie. We'll see how that goes. You might regret asking to meet in the damn woods instead of somewhere public where he'd be less likely to snap your neck."
"I guess we'll find out," Doug replied.
He ended the call without saying goodbye and tossed the phone onto the bed. He felt powerful somehow. Energized.
"Well, that was interesting."
Doug looked up to see Angela standing in the doorway with a tray of grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee, which were just about all his kitchen had to offer at the moment.
He blew out a long breath. "How much of that did you hear?"
She arched an eyebrow. "Enough to know you've been a bad boy."
Doug picked up the remote and clicked off the TV, trying to interpret her facial expression.
"You don't seem all that troubled."
Angela slid the lunch tray onto the low bureau. She started to speak and then her smile faltered and a terrible sadness seemed to descend upon her. Powerful emotion made her voice crack when she tried to speak, and she waved a hand in front of her face, mustering control of herself.
"Sorry," she said, forcing a smile.
Doug took a step toward her, hands up, wanting to comfort her. "I didn't mean for you to hear any of that, and I'm sorry, but I can't apologize for any of it."
With her sad smile, she put a hand on his chest, grabbing a fistful of his sweater. "I'm not looking for apologies and I'm not gonna judge you. The world owes you an apology, babe."
Doug stared at her, having trouble processing her acceptance. They'd had a brief, torrid relationship several years ago. Angela had been just as broken and needy as he'd been and they'd abused each other emotionally, each forgiving the other. By nature she was loud and a bit crass and rough in the manner of young beasts who don't know their own strength.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
Angela stepped in close to him, pressed her body against his and her lips to the softness of his throat.
"I'm the woman who's not running away."
"What I can't figure out is why."
With a soft kiss, she pushed him backward until he struck the bed and sat down, and then she straddled him playfully. They were both fully clothed and she made no effort to undress him or herself, just touched his face and gazed into his eyes with something like love. She couldn't love him; Doug felt sure of that. They didn't know each other well enough. But something in her eyes made his mouth go dry.
"You may be up to no good, but you're a good man," she said, almost in a whisper, more vulnerable than he had ever seen her before. "I don't like the idea of you doing something criminal mostly because it makes me afraid for you. I know you're not some killer or rapist and you're not going to really hurt anyone. You're stealing from someone, right?"
He knew he ought to keep his mouth shut. A crazy thought struck him: could her showing up have been something other than serendipity? Had Baxter somehow sent her? Or the cops?
Her eyes put the lie to that.
"Yeah. Something like that," he confessed, drawing in a deep breath, feeling something inside him that he didn't quite understand.
Why was he telling her the truth? He'd never been the kind of guy who turned into a fool in a woman's presence. Only Cherie had ever had that effect on him. He thought of Jack Nicholson, of a famous line in one of his movies that he'd always told Cherie applied to the two of them: You make me want to be a better man.
"And you're not going to take anything from someone they can't afford to lose?"
"No."
She smiled. "Told you."
Doug slid his fingers into her hair, bent to kiss her, and stopped.
"You're just going to trust my word? You're so sure I'm a good man?"
Angela's only answer was a kiss.
"Listen," she said, adjusting herself on his lap, rocking a little bit as she straddled him, rubbing denim against denim. "This thing that happened last night and this morning … I think it's going pretty well, don't you?"
"Is that a trick question?" he asked, enjoying the friction.
She grinned. "Me too. And I'm not ready to let it end. I don't want to freak you out but I called my boss from downstairs and told her I'm taking a week of my accumulated vacation time from the hospital, starting now. We had something, once upon a time … the beginning of something, anyway. And I want to see if we can make it grow again."
Doug's pulse had begun to race. He let out a shuddery breath and pushed against her, grabbing her ass and pulling her more tightly to him.